Welcome and Goals

Welcome to the 2011 Teaching Assistant (TA) training run by the Biological Engineering department at MIT!

Our goal these two days is to begin to prepare you for the challenges and rewards of teaching, and to introduce mentors and other resources for you to rely on this year. Whether you are currently excited or apprehensive (or anything in between) about TAing, we hope you will view it as an opportunity not just to make a difference in the lives of your students, but also to develop your own communication and management skills.

Putting time and effort into your TAship now will pay dividends later: managing UROPs in your lab, identifying and understanding different learning styles (your students', your peers', and your own), training and collaborating with peers, speaking and giving presentations at conferences, and dealing with industry colleagues' widely-varying backgrounds and expectations.

The BE department takes great pride in its commitment to both undergraduate and graduate teaching and learning. We also take your professional growth and development seriously - and we know you'll take your new role as educators and mentors equally seriously.

Agenda

Day 1: Monday, August 29th

Monday, August 29th in Room 56-614

Time

Event

Speaker(s)

10:00-10:15 AM

Coffee, pick up materials, mingle

10:15-11:10

Lecture: training goals and introduction to TA role

Alan Jasanoff and Forest White

11:10-11:45

Team discussion: reflect on learning and teaching

Small groups

11:45 AM-1:00 PM

Meet/Q&A with TA mentors over lunch

Small groups

1:00-1:10 PM

What a TAship means in BE

Doug Lauffenburger, department head

1:10-1:45

Microteaching demonstration and practice feedback

Forest White (and interactive)

1:45-2:30

On effective teaching in diverse classrooms

Agi Stachowiak (and interactive)

Day 2: Tuesday, August 30th

Tuesday, August 30th in Room 56-614

You will be put into groups of no more than 6 people for a practice teaching session ("microteaching"). Please sign up for a problem below by putting your name under the appropriate column. (Sample sign-ups are shown below as prb x, grp y.) Within a group, each person should do a different problem. The problem statements can be found in the "handout" section below. Please email Agi for assistance if you have trouble signing up. Microteaching is required for students teaching lecture subjects. If you are a lab subject TA and want a chance to practice, please see us - we may have a few additional slots available.

Before your session on Tuesday, please read the following two links on effective observation and feedback during microteaching:

Helping Students

Please do not hesitate to talk to the faculty member(s) teaching your subject if you encounter a student having unusual difficulties that you are not in a position to address. For your reference, some resources for students (that includes most of you, in fact!) are below.